Blackbriar Read online

  “I’m sure it wasn’t anything so mundane. For one thing, it didn’t really sound like singing. It was more like chanting. Sort of like that medieval stuff—”

  “Gregorian chant?”

  “Yes, but different. More . . . violent, or passionate, or something. And they were all perfectly together. That’s why I could hear it. Every once in a while they would all shout. It was weird. I wanted to come up here and see what was going on, but I just didn’t have the guts to do it alone.”

  “I wonder if it will happen again. . . .” Danny said. This is stranger than anything I ever dreamed up, he thought suddenly, and wondered if the house itself had been involved in any way. “But other people must know about it. Didn’t you ask anyone?”

  “They wouldn’t tell me,” she said bitterly.

  “Mr. Creech didn’t mention it to us. We thought his explanation sounded a bit flimsy. But if he didn’t warn us about it, he must have thought it wasn’t really dangerous for us to be around. I know he wouldn’t tell us it was safe here if it wasn’t. He just must have thought it would scare us away.” He explained about the Land Rover, and how they had spent the night in the Creeches’ house.

  The girl lay back on the brown turf again, putting her hands behind her head. She smiled at Danny. “You know,” she said, “I’m glad you’ve come to live here. I get pretty lonely sometimes. There aren’t many other kids around this part of the country. Except for the gentry, of course, who are a bunch of prigs and snobs. They’re always away at school anyway.”

  “I suppose I’m glad we’ve come, even though I didn’t want to. I can’t tell yet.”

  “Why did you come, if you didn’t want to?”

  For a moment he didn’t know what to say. “Well . . . Philippa wanted me to, and she usually gets her way. And I didn’t have anywhere else to live.”

  She looked at him strangely. “But if you really didn’t want to come, why didn’t you just find another—”

  “Oh,” he said quickly, “it doesn’t matter now. I’m here.” But why do I let Philippa run my life? he thought. Why am I so afraid to stand up to her? And for the first time it seemed very wrong to him that for as long as he had lived with her, Philippa had been practically his only companion. “Anyway, I just wish I could find out what all these strange things mean.”

  “I’ve always wanted to find out about them too,” she said. “We can help each other.”

  “Yes, but you live down below, where there are other people around. Philippa and I live up here in the dark, alone.” He was about to add that she also lived with her father, someone perhaps more reassuring to have around than a middle-aged secretary. But her confident manner, her implication that she did not have to depend on adults, made him feel slightly foolish. He was, after all, the man of his house.

  “Well, I’d like to come up to your house sometime,” she said. “And if there’s another one of those . . . fires and chanting things up here, we’ll go together.”

  Danny hadn’t been sure that he was going to go at all; but now, of course, he realized he had to. It was almost as if they had made a pact.

  He felt a cold drop of rain on his forehead, and stood up, shaking himself and stamping his feet. “I think I’d better start back,” he said. “I’m not sure I could find my way back in the dark, and I already got drenched last night.”

  “Yes,” she said, getting up too, “I have to fix something for my father to eat.” Suddenly they were awkward.

  “Oh,” Danny said, “what’s your name?”

  “Lark,” she answered, holding out her hand, “Lark Hovington.”

  “Mine’s Danny Chilton,” he said, shaking her hand. They couldn’t help smiling at each other.

  “Well, bye,” she said, and plunged down to the plateau. When he got down, on the other side of the mound, he turned and waved. She was already starting down the hillside. “See you later!” he called, and she smiled back.

  He ran almost all the way to the cottage, not because of the impending darkness and rain, but because he was happier than he could ever remember being before.

  By the time he reached the house he had decided not to tell Philippa about the girl (which meant that he could not tell her the story about the fires on the plateau, either). He was afraid of what Philippa would do if he told her he had met someone he liked. In London, Philippa had successfully managed to end every friendship Danny had made. At first he had believed her explanations: it was for his own good that she did not want him to see so-and-so. But eventually it had become clear to him that she had other motives, and soon after that it dawned on him what they were. She was simply afraid to let anyone else become important in his life, for then he might be moved to leave her. She held onto him with an iron grip. When he first realized this, Danny had resented it bitterly; but, as with everything else, he had given in. She was stronger than he was. No friendship had been important enough to go through the struggle of fighting with her about it.

  But now he hoped to prevent her from interfering. The only way to do so, he knew, was simply to keep Lark a secret, for he did not trust himself to stand firm against whatever objections Philippa might make.

  But when she greeted him at the door Philippa was in such vivacious good spirits that he hardly had a chance to tell her he had been to the tumuli at all. Talking constantly, she led him about by the hand to see all the improvements she had made that afternoon: how the branches she had picked were arranged in pottery vases and bowls, how she had moved some of the furniture to make the room look cozier, how beautiful the wooden floors were when they were clean. The narrow kitchen was full of steam from the boiling pot of brussels sprouts, and while Philippa finished cooking the meal, Danny sat staring peacefully at the misty reflections in the window, congratulating himself on how cleverly he had managed to preserve the pleasant atmosphere that now filled the house.

  Just as Philippa took the baked sausages and mushrooms out of the oven there was a short knock at the door.

  “Who on earth could that be?” she asked, and banged the hot pan down on top of the stove.

  “Our first visitor,” said Danny. He hurried toward the door, hoping that it would not be Lark, but unable to imagine who else would be up on the ridge on a rainy winter evening. The first thing he noticed when he opened the door was the color of the sky, which had not yet become completely black. A vivid pink glow was settling down over the barren trees and fading yard, and the figure in the doorway appeared only as a darker, jagged shadow against the mournful twilight. Two pinpoints of reflected firelight shone from what must have been the face.

  “Oh . . .” came the quiet, lisping voice, “oh, pardon me. I was surprised to see you here.” Danny peered more closely, but the small, bright eyes were all he could see clearly. “. . . When I noticed the lights I thought it would be Mary Peachy. But I see I was mistaken. Pardon me . . .” The figure watched him for a moment, one of its eyes twitching, then turned away and was quickly lost in the shadows behind.

  Danny gazed briefly into the night, which was now completely black, and slammed the door and bolted it

  Philippa was clutching Islington, who, with arched back, was hissing at the door. “What did he say?” she gasped.

  Danny sat down quickly on a chair in front of the fire. “He said . . . he thought Mary Peachy would be here!”

  On the ancient door her name seemed clearer than ever before. The only name without a date.

  7

  “Where’s Islington?”

  Lil, after a tense half hour of wheezing, dying, being pushed and cursed at, was rumbling and shaking, ready to go. The fires were out, the house was locked, blankets were piled in the front seat and baskets and empty milk bottles in the back. Philippa and Danny, sweating after their exertions in heavy clothes, stood by the rattling car.

  “Where has he gone to, just when we’re about to start?” Philippa scanned the yard and the surrounding trees. “Islington!” she called. “Islington, come here this instant
!”

  “I’ll go hunt for him.” Danny sighed, praying that the motor wouldn’t die again. He started across the yard, still awkward in his heavy rubber boots. “Islington! Issssslington! Where are yououou?” All around the house the yard was empty. Finally he walked a little way into the woods, kicking the underbrush, shouting into the trees. When he returned to the car the motor was off. Philippa was digging in her purse for the keys to the house. “I’ll have to take these boots off now to go inside,” she said, “and we’re already so late as it is. If he’s not there, I don’t know what we’ll do.”

  She unlocked the door, then leaned against the wall to pull off her boots. As he wandered around the yard Danny could hear Philippa’s voice echoing faintly from inside the house. There were rustlings in the underbrush, but Islington did not emerge.

  “I’ve found him!” Philippa called suddenly from the doorway, and Danny raced over to her. “Here, hold him while I get these bloody boots on. He was sniffing about under your chest of drawers, the nuisance! He wouldn’t go near your room in London. Why he should do it here is a mystery to me.” The cat stretched in Danny’s arms, extending his claws. Danny felt like strangling him.

  “And now this heap isn’t going to start again,” Philippa moaned, as they settled into the front seat. But, warmed up, Lil sprang immediately to life, and they creaked off down the track. As before, they lurched and scraped and bumped through the trees, always on the verge of tipping over, barely dragging through great pools of mud; but they were slightly familiar with it now and the ride was not so startling. The forest track still seemed endless though, and Islington was no more comfortable than before. This time, however, they were prepared, and heavy blankets protected Danny’s legs from Islington’s claws. Finally the gate appeared through the trees, and though they did tilt and bump across the field, it was a relief after the muddy track. The gravel lane that wound down the hillside was heaven.

  As they descended, the dark gothic mansion on the other end of the hill came into view. Danny decided to ask Lark what kind of people lived in that gloomy place. Cows were still grazing on the green beside the Black Swan, and the warm glow in the inn windows was a welcoming sight, even after only a few days of being out of touch with the rest of the world.

  As the car headed down the road to Dunchester, Danny found that he felt oddly superior to the few other drivers and the occasional cyclists. They just led ordinary lives, surrounded and protected by other people, policemen, gas stations, shops. But he lived off in the wilderness, involved with the important, natural aspects of life. He imagined himself as having just descended from a higher plane of existence to see the senseless scurryings of these trapped creatures. He was no longer caught like these others in empty routines. He was experiencing what was real.

  Then he remembered the evening before, and his sense of superiority quickly disappeared. For last night he had truly begun to wonder what was real and what was not. He had hardly been able to see the strange visitor, but he could not forget that lisping voice. And what were the sinister implications of those words? Who was this Mary Peachy? Why was hers the only name without a date, and how could the stranger possibly have known her, as his words implied? He had examined the door carefully that morning and her name was clearly just as old as all the others.

  Philippa pulled up beside Mr. Creech’s battered gas pumps. His hair standing in the wind, his face ruddy, Mr. Creech bounced over to the car, grinning broadly. “How is everything?” he asked. “How do you like Blackbriar?”

  “Oh, it’s beautiful, Mr. Creech, beautiful,” Philippa cooed. “But—”

  “I knew you’d like it!” he interrupted. “And what about you, lad? Getting lonely up there?”

  “No, Mr. Creech, it’s all right,” and not wanting to be interrupted, he added quickly, “especially because of all the strange things about it.”

  Mr. Creech seemed to be unable to think of anything to say, so Danny went on. “Mr. Creech, have you ever been inside? Do you know what those names on the door are supposed to mean?”

  Mr. Creech had begun to wipe the windshield with quick, nervous strokes. “No, I never was.” He stopped wiping and came around to the window. “And I wouldn’t worry too much about anything strange you might see, if I was you. I told you, there’s always a load of batty superstitions in an out-of-the-way place like this.”

  “We had a very odd visitor last night,” Philippa said, and Danny could tell that she really didn’t want to mention it. “He just came to the door, he didn’t try to get in. But he mentioned one of the names on that door, just as if he knew the person, even though it appears to have been carved there centuries ago.”

  “Well,” Mr. Creech said, “I can’t explain the actions of everybody in this part of the country. I’ve told you people are superstitious about that place. You’ve got to expect things like that if you’re going to live in such a place.”

  “I like things like that,” Danny said almost inaudibly, not quite matching Lark’s self-confident tone.

  “However,” Mr. Creech went on, ignoring Danny’s comment, “from what you say, it sounds like it might be Lord Harleigh, of Harleigh Manor. That’s the large house you must have noticed on the other side of the hill from you. He’s just a harmless eccentric, likes to roam the hills at night.” And that was all he seemed to want to say.

  Lil was briskly filled with gas, her oil measured, her tires and water checked. “This is a damn fine wagon,” Mr. Creech said. “She could make that hill four times a day with no trouble. That ought to make you feel comfortable up there.” He stood at the gas pumps and looked after them as they rumbled away.

  “Well,” Philippa said, whisking the car past a small cluster of narrow stone houses, “he’s a pleasant fellow, to be sure, but I still think he’s not telling us everything he knows.”

  “But the thing is, at least he tells us something. And I do have the feeling he cares what happens to us. I mean he probably wouldn’t let us stay there if it was really dangerous, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” she said doubtfully, “I suppose you’re right.”

  The scattered outbuildings of Dunchester were beginning to appear around them: run-down farmhouses with tiny gardens covered with cheesecloth, a grimy pub with a tattered beer advertisement hanging over the door, garages, and sagging stucco sheds. Ahead of them was a creaking wooden cart filled with jouncing bushel baskets of cabbages, dragged by a sleepy mare who ambled along at an infuriatingly slow pace.

  The road passed through a wide opening in the thick city wall. Within, the street was lined with tiny wooden shops like those Philippa had visited across from the station. The street was so narrow that although the traffic was light by London standards, it hardly moved at all, complicated by hand carts and more horse-drawn vehicles. Danny was amused by the frenetic bustle all around.

  Slowly working their way through, they continued down the street until they reached the cathedral. This was a massive stone structure badly in need of repair. The entire area around the large arched entrance was covered with fantastic sculptures carved from the stone: praying, hooded women and bearded men besieged by imps and dragons and grotesque conglomerate creatures, all cut with a primitive, mournful hand. The people’s mouths turned down with sorrow, their eyes looked pleadingly up to heaven in an exaggerated manner, and the creatures cackled and screamed and laughed with ferocious glee, promising even more hideous, unimaginable horrors to come.

  Philippa stopped the car and for a long moment they simply stared at the façade, enchanted by the morbid complexity of the work. But at last she turned her face away. “Well,” she said briskly, “I wonder where the library is. That couldn’t possibly be it, right across the street there, could it?”

  “Oh, yes, I guess it must be. Dreary-looking place, isn’t it.”

  She became very businesslike. “Now, you have that curriculum from the school, don’t you?” she said. “I’m sure this place will have Julius Caesar and Romeo and Jul
iet as well as the novels you’re supposed to read. We’ve got your math book at home; you can work on that tonight. And we’ve got the Gallic Wars. You might try to find a Latin dictionary. And why don’t you glance over the history part of that curriculum. Where are you now, the Wars of the Roses? It’ll do you good to do some research and work out where you can find the information you need. I think that will probably keep you busy while I’m at the shops. And I won’t be in any hurry, I feel like dawdling, maybe chatting a bit with the shopkeepers. Who knows what I might find out?”

  Danny languidly trudged from the car, pausing on the library steps to watch Lil careen down the street.

  The air in the library was full of dust; and the room was so dim, compared to the outside, that at first it was difficult to see anything but the round pools of light on the long wooden tables. Behind the main desk an ornate iron staircase spiraled upwards into even dimmer, dustier regions. The bald, spectacled, heavily jowled figure behind the desk turned away from his yellowed newspaper only after Danny had stood there for almost a minute. Silently, he looked Danny up and down. With great thoroughness he cleared his throat; then, his jowls swinging slowly, he asked, “Can I help you?”

  “I’d . . . like to apply for a library card, sir,” Danny rasped, surprised to find that his throat, too, seemed to be clogged.

  “Well, I’m sure that can be arranged.” The man spoke so slowly that he sounded as if he were half asleep. With a pudgy hand he pulled a faintly printed, blue-inked form from beneath the wooden surface and handed it to Danny. “If you would fill this out now, please . . .”

  When Danny handed the form back, the man began to glance at it briefly with half-closed eyes, then suddenly jerked, jiggling, out of his daze.

  “What’s this you say?” he asked. “Where is it you’re living?”

  “At Blackbriar, sir. You know, the cottage up on that hill with the tumuli, near the Black Swan.”

  “Yes, yes, I know the place. Who did you say you’re with there?”